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Monthly Archives: May 2014

This week’s Spoonflower textile competition is beard and mustache themed! I went a little off in to my own universe where all manner of creatures have very dashing facial hair in my design “A Furry Upper Lip” ! I worked with a more vintage palette which I think fits well with the subject theme. This design cracks me up every time I look at it! Maybe I should make these guys into plushies… 🙂

Last week I had the amazing experience of attending Surtex to walk the show and meet so many of my lovely and absolutely inspiring artist friends in person. The booths were beautiful, artwork mind-blowing, and everyone I spoke to was so gracious and wonderful, going out of their way to share their experiences and give advice about the show and industry. And on the same floor the National Stationary Show was taking place with a whole extra level of product and design to fall in love with. Wow! I’m still processing the events of the trip a week later!
While this was going on, I was wondering if it would be possible to do the May Bootcamp Assignment in time for the deadline. Well, I’m happy to report that I was able to finish! This month, the theme was editorial illustration for an article called How to Meditate: A Primer for People Who Don’t Like to Meditate and needed to contain a human figure in some way. Now, if you are familiar with my blog and work you may have noticed there is a distinctive lack of human beings, so I knew this was going to be an interesting departure from my normal content. I think that the end result turned out pretty great though, and my figure is very representative of my style. This is “The Mind Wanders.” I feel so much inspired by finishing this project I’ve been drawing people non-stop! Watch this space 🙂

The gallery is now live to see everyone’s great work for May Bootcamp and you can check it out here!

This is my Spoonflower entry for the utensil themed textile design contest this week! It’s called “Everything but the Sink!” because well… I pretty much included every kitchen utensil I could fit in except the sink! Haha! I think I need to order some of this on cotton so I can make an apron (LONG overdue project) 🙂

This year I have the great pleasure of attending Surtex for the first time. I myself am not exhibiting this year, but many of my friends and collective members are! I am so very much looking forward to walking the floor and learning all kinds of new things at the seminars, plus meeting all my MATS friends! I hope to show at Surtex eventually, so this is a step towards making that goal come true. This trip was an extra push to get a new set of business cards with my new branding and surface pattern work 🙂

I have another wonderful showcase of MATS submissions! A little bit ago, They Draw & Cook held an illustrated recipe contest with Glad in which designers needed to create a layout with 3 recipes using one healthy ingredient as their main component. My fellow bootcamper the fabulous Jana Curll, whom I greatly admire, actually ended up winning the with her beautiful piece “Oh, Happy Apple!” (linked below). All the pieces submitted by my MATS friends are so unique and beautiful, I highly recommend you check out all the links 🙂

Recently I collaborated with my younger sister, an amazing pastry chef, on an illustrated recipe project! She came up with three sustainable recipes that only use one single chicken between all of them based on some of our family traditions. I then hand-lettered and illustrated them, having a lot of fun with textures. The recipe is now showcased on the amazing website They Draw & Cook (the sister website of They Draw & Travel which I posted about last month). These dishes are easy to make and delicious!

All rights reserved. All designs on this website are copyright of Ashley Lotecki unless otherwise stated. No images, graphics, or text on this site may be reproduced or distributed without written permission of the artist, Ashley Lotecki. If you would like to discuss licensing any designs please email hello (at) ashleylotecki (dot) com